A judge has thrown out a Pittsburgh Public Schools lawsuit that sought to require a countywide tax reassessment, ruling that the school district does not have the legal right to demand wholesale changes to assessed property values.
Judge Kenneth G. Valasek’s 26-page opinion did not speak to the substance of the school district’s claims: ”The dismissal of the lawsuit brought by the school district should not be interpreted to mean that Allegheny County’s current assessments are constitutionally permissible,” the opinion concludes. “This issue has not been decided by the court.”
Instead, he tossed the case out on a procedural question: whether the school district has the legal standing to sue over the matter at all.
Valasek recited a litany of complaints that form the basis of the complaint the district filed last year. In that telling, the fact that the county has not performed a reassessment since 2012 means the values have grown more and more out of whack. The assessments have become so untethered from actual values, the district argued, that the system violates the state Constitution's Uniformity Clause, which requires that "all taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects."
The district's problems were exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, which prompted a devaluation in commercial properties particularly — especially those in Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. Owners of those buildings sought, and some received, lower tax valuations through an appeals process. That has not just left the district with less revenue, but compelled it to pay multimillion-dollar refunds projected to cost the district $20 million between 2022 and 2024.
But Valasek ruled the district could have addressed that situation without resorting to the courts — simply by raising taxes by roughly 1 mill.
“The District allowed the refunds to impair its financial conditions because it chose not to act” by leaving tax rates in place, he wrote. “The school District was not helpless.”
And while the state Constitution does require uniformity in taxation, he ruled, that is intended to protect the people who pay the taxes, not those who collect them.
Valasek, an Armstrong County senior judge, was assigned to the case after judges on Allegheny County’s Common Pleas Court bench recused themselves.
The case marks a win for County Executive Sara Innamorato, who for a time campaigned on a pledge to carry out a reassessment herself but later repositioned herself on the issue.
The legal fight isn’t over: Last month a homeowner in Churchill filed a suit in Common Pleas Court, arguing that the county’s system “does not accurately reflect market fluctuations that have occurred over the past 13 years.”
Flavia Laun’s lawsuit faults Innamorato because she did raise tax rates without first addressing what the lawsuit calls “mass, systematic, non-uniform assessments.”
The lawsuit cites last year’s 36 percent hike in the county’s millage rate, contending that “[r]ather than requiring under-assessed property owners to pay their fair share, the county “has simply chosen to shift their tax liability over to everyone else in the form of higher taxes.”
The county has not filed a response to the new suit.
